Above Logic
by DarbyMcGraw
Summary: There is something very wrong with Watson, and it isn't easy to detect. And what if, God forbid, the cause is one Mr. Sherlock Holmes? Unfortunately it's difficult to be descriptive in the summary without telling all, so I'm asking for leap of faith. R
1. Chapter 1

He is sitting languidly in his chair, the yellow back perched open, resting upon his knee, his thumb marking the place he left off, a short way through the chapter entitled "The Sea-chest." It is not for lack of enjoyment that he is unable to keep his eyes fixed upon the page, but a wandering contentment, which compels him to cast them about the room.

The fire crackles and pops with an easy energy and turns heat and light back into the slowly darkening room. The dancing flames send the wainscoting and everything inside it into a state of perpetual chiaroscuro. Watson is about to reach across to turn up the lamp next to Holmes' arm chair, when the owner of the same suddenly heard bounding up to the second floor. Only nine, light sounding treads, because Holmes takes the stairs two at a time. He is through the door before he can even have the time to finish opening it.

"I take it your excursion was successful, then, Holmes?" Watson asks, leaning forward in his arm chair. Holmes' only reply is a triumphant sounding, "Hum!" as he shoves a disheveled looking piece of paper under Watson's nose and then goes to peer out the bow window, with another nondescript noise. Watson smirks and rubs his mustache, examining the thin strip of paper.

Not more than fifteen centimeters across, and about three centimeters wide, it is smoothly cut on three sides and looks torn on the fourth. Its arrival, however, in Watson's eyes, is something of an anticlimax. He has been expecting a solution to this "little problem," for some days now, and the paper which he now holds in front of him is decidedly blank. He turns up the lamp, and it's added luminescence contributes nothing to the paper's assets. Watson opens his mouth to speak, but before the question has fully formed in his mind Holmes interrupts:

"Well, Watson?"

"Well, Holmes?"

"_Well_, what do you think of it!" cries Holmes. "It is of some interest in our little problem, is it not?"

"I must confess, Holmes," Watson replies, feeling something akin to a blindfolded man in the middle of an art expedition, "that I see nothing more than an ill-used scrap of paper."

"Tut, Watson, tut!" Holmes cries, and strides over to Watson's arm chair with visible gusto. He snatches the paper from Watson's fingers and holds it at arms length in front of them. "It is," he begins, while rummaging through his pockets with his free hand for a cigarette, "the flap from the envelope found in Paulot's breast pocket. I would have liked to have gotten away with the whole thing, which was a veritable gold mine, once I was afforded the opportunity to see it up close..." Here he pauses as Watson proffers up a glowing match to light Holme's cigarette. The stick perched easily between his lips, he continues: "However, Gregson was not in much of a charitable mood this evening, and so I found myself sneaking this-" a flourish of the scrap, "into my pocket."

"You may call me a fool, Holmes, but I still don't see how the envelope itself could have made you any wiser, let alone the flap of it. Didn't Gregson say in his first note that there was no post mark or return address?"

"He did indeed, Watson, and I commend you for remembering it! There is, however, a very little which we may hope to glean from this scrap." The steady stream of smoke from his cigarette rises elegantly towards the ceiling, and vanishes noiselessly. "We are looking for a man, Watson, who is left handed. Clearly, he has a hopeless smoking habit, which puts even as tenacious a connoisseur of tobacco as myself to shame. He is also a man of singularly strong habits, who hails from the United States- Ohio, if I am not very much mistaken, and is less comfortable financially than you or I."

"Why, Holmes! All of that from the flap of an envelope. I cannot possibly begin to imagine! Incredible!"

Holmes chuckles slightly, obviously glad of his friends approval. "And more than what I have previously expounded." Here he throws his quickly finished cigarette into the grating of the fire. You know, I should consider you a hardened felon, old man, were flattery to be declared a crime by Her Majesty's government."

"Nonsense, Holmes, nonsense. However did you deduce all that?" Watson watched as the end of the cigarette is consumed in the flickering flames, and then looks back at his companion, who has since ceased to squat beside the arm chair, and stands pacing along the window sill.

"You know my methods, Wat- Aha!" Holmes cuts himself short, snapping his pocket watch shut and restoring it to it's proper place. "I do hope you will forgive me, old man. However, I have but half an hour to arrive at a small establishment about a mile and a half from here. The winter air being as crisp as it is, I should prefer to get along and stretch my legs. If you should care to join me..."

"I should like nothing more, Holmes," and Watson throws his yellow back onto the chair without marking his place. He has already put on coat, hat, gloves and scarf when Holmes returns looking thoroughly pleased.

"Excellent, Watson! I thought I could depend upon you. And along the way, I will continue my explanation of the man who sent this letter. If you would be so kind as to bring along your old Webley, I do believe it would make a nice match for my Irish Constabulary."

Watson pulls the service revolver out of his pocket, to signify that he has thought ahead of Holmes and pocketed it beforehand. Holmes grins and grips the handle of his Royal Irish, before stowing it firmly in his coat pocket once more. He looks about for his hat, briefly, before Watson says 'Holmes,' and points to the hat, sitting discarded on the chemical bench in the far left of the room. Holmes picks it up, and they are out the door before it has settled firmly on his head.

This is the short little Prologue. So, anyway. Let me know what you think of it. The characterizations, the plot (what little you can tell from this,) the style. If there was anything you particularly liked or didn't like. Even flames. I'll take those too.


	2. Chapter 2

The air outside is a remarkably tangible thing. Hawkish and brittle, like glass left too long in an ice box, it trembles and then shatters with every footfall, breath and whisper which befalls it. Watson is glad of the brisk pace it instills in his step.

He walks beside Holmes for three cobbled blocks in faithful silence, aware that patience is a virtue, and that his companion is ever a man to do things in his own time. Holmes appears to be deep in reverie, alternately privy to grave and frivolous thinking.

"Watson," he says finally, hands clasped behind his back and chin pressed into his collar. "I begin to develop certain trepidations."

Watson looks at Holmes with no small measure of surprise. Neither are much given to apprehension or disquietude, and Watson is startled that Holmes should be subject to much consternation, given that they are each armed and fit for a brawl. "You foresee some danger, Holmes?"

"If there is treachery tonight, there is little data to suggest that it shall be at the hands of the man we are presently on our way to meet. We need only have fear of an altercation should my plans for the evening go amiss. However, I have reason to believe that there may be some level of delicacy in the matter." Holmes keeps his eyes trained upon the ground in front of him, and Watson has a sneaking suspicion that it is on purpose.

"Who _are_ we going to meet, Holmes?" Watson cannot help himself.

"Mm. That, I should prefer to keep to myself until you have seen him with your own eyes, particularly because he himself is unaware of our present-" here he pauses for just over three strides, "_manifestation_," he finishes, with purpose.

This only serves to baffle Watson even further, but he makes no remark; only furrows his brow in thought.

"Ah, but Watson, you have been only too patient," Holmes continues, in that thespian manner which is so becoming of him. "The least I can do is to finish the exposition of our fellow, the Letter Sender, who is also the man we are presently heading to interview."

Watson is relieved and holds back the urge to say, 'finally!' Instead, he rubs his mustache and says, "Please, do, I am all ears."

"You may first find it worthwhile to note, dear Watson, that I have, in point of actual fact, expounded upon this particular man once before now."

"Indeed, Holmes! That _is _peculiar." Watson begins to run through the many hundreds of faces he has encountered as a result of Holmes' company, and the possibilities are astounding.

"Yes, quite at the premier of our acquaintance. Now!" Holmes rubs his hands together and breaths heavily into them. "Down to it. My first, and least astounding of deductions, Watson was to say that the person we are looking for is a male." Here Holmes pulled out the scrap and held it out again to the glow of the moon. "Perhaps you will be good enough to note some slight indentations on the left hand side, just here," says Holmes pointing, and Watson nods his assent. "They are left there because the envelope was partially strewn below the paper as whatever letter which previously inhabited it was written. The pen was applied with such force that it left and indent not only in the paper but upon the envelope beneath it. This leads one to make several observations. First, that the source of this letter's creation writes with a prodigiously high amount of pressure, which may signal a distressed emotional state, or perhaps an attempt to cover up some defect in fluidity; a tremor, for example. You will also be hard pressed, I think, to find any educated woman with such a monstrous hand as this."

"You think he had formal training, Holmes?"

"I do indeed, Watson, and you hurry me along to my next point. You see, looking very closely that just here the writing is most pronounced, and that the impression of letters 'Con-' are quite plain. You remember that I told you the man had been living in Ohio, of course. However, it is clear that he had not been living there until well after childhood. If he had been, he should have been trained in the Spencerian script, which has flourished in American schools since the mid-1840's."

"Wonderful! But, how on Earth did you guess Ohio?"

"Ah, yes always right to the heart of things, Watson- splendid! I don't suppose you happened to smell our scrap of evidence, did you?"

"I confess I did not," Watson replies bemusedly.

"White burley tobacco is commonly grown in that American state, and also has a very distinctive odor, which has been left behind in the fiber of the paper. The fact that he smokes it in such quantities to have absolutely ingrained it upon his person as well as his possessions speaks volumes as to his dependency. However, it is a comparatively mild form of tobacco, and since he has yet to switch to a more potent variety, even in his extreme dependency, tells me that he is a man of incredibly strong habit. As well, that he should continue to purchase it here in England, where it is much more difficult to get, serves to reinforce this facet of our analysis."

By this time the companions are nearing their destination. Watson's curiosity grows to heights he can hardly put to words. "Now, Watson," says Holmes, as he beats several measures from 'La Musica Notturna Delle Strade Di Madrid' into his palm, "There are still several of the smaller points which I have yet to clear up. However, since we are nearing our destination, I do believe I shall allow them to prove themselves in due course." Here a pause, as Holmes' pace falters. "Watson, I do hope I have not made a mistake in asking you to join me this evening."

"Why, Holmes! If you lack confidence in my presence, then I shall certainly remove myself." He is more than a little put off by Holmes' mistrust.

"Never in life, old man Watson- you misunderstand. There is, however, as I have said, a certain delicacy..."

"Holmes," says Watson, thoroughly put out by the theatrics. "Tell me who we are calling upon!"

Holmes' eyebrows raise slightly. The right hand corner of his lip twitches minutely. "Well, Watson. In point of fact... We are going to meet your brother."

Thanks very much to Reflekshun for their kind review! Also, to those reading this: Please, if you plan on sticking around for chapter three; say so! Any thing, any review I'll take as encouragement. All I wan't is a response. This story has gotten 200 hits within 24 hours, but only one review. (Again, thanks, Reflekshun!) Is it that bad? I'm beggin' ya here!


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